The borough of Hammersmith and Fulham has become the
laboratory for national Government housing policy. Where H&F goes
first, the Government will follow. And the policy at present is to
deliver no extra social rented housing despite the borough’s housing
needs.

Housing Benefit costs in London are so high because there is a
shortage of affordable housing, and in particular social rented
housing. Under Gordon Brown the Labour Government began to build new
social homes, but this has now almost entirely stopped. The
explanation, at least for the cuts in Social Housing Grant, is austerity
economics, although other projects to stimulate the construction
industry are going ahead.

But this is not the true picture. Tory policy is actually to
eradicate social rented housing, or confine it to perhaps 10% of current
tenants, those with physical or mental health conditions requiring
supported housing. Just as the blueprint for current policy (as enacted
in the Localism Act) can be read in the 2008 publication, Principles Of Social Housing Reform,
so the practice in Hammersmith & Fulham (‘Cameron’s favourite
council’ and the ‘apple’ of Eric Pickle’s eye) shows how council and
housing association homes can be gradually extinguished nationwide.

Pickles and Shapps were both briefed on the 2008 discussions and
Shapps attended the seminar which drew up the key elements of H&F
policy and discussed social rented housing in disparaging terms.

Here are the four main techniques currently being used to socially and politically change the population of the borough.

1. No Planning Consents For Social Housing
At least 13,000 new homes will be given planning consent in
Hammersmith & Fulham this year on current plans. Not one will be an
additional social home for rent. This is despite Boris Johnson’s
London Plan requiring 25% social rented homes in any such new
development, a waiting list of 8,000 families many of whom live in very
overcrowded or unfit dwellings and have waited five years or more for
re-housing, and only 6% of private accommodation likely to affordable to
HB claimants under new benefit regulations. H&F is one of the
councils moving residents to Derby and Nottingham.

2. Demolition
The first major demolition scheme is of 761 good-quality, popular, recently-refurbished houses and flats in West Kensington

After much lobbying the Council did agree to ‘replace’ the demolished
flats somewhere in the development area (which will include 7,500 new
flats). Whether residents, many of whom are freeholders or
leaseholders, elderly people or temporary tenants will take up this
offer is doubtful, given the site will be developed over 20 years.

3. Selling council properties
300 council homes are currently being sold by auction to raise in
excess of £100 million. These appear to be selling undervalue, and can
only be sold to developers rather than prospective residents under
Government rules. One featured in the BBC programme Under the Hammer.
The first call for the proceeds of sale is likely to be the purchase
of leasehold and freehold interests in West Kensington so vacant
possession can be delivered to the developer, despite earlier claims
that they would be reinvested in housing.

4. New tenancies
The Council’s new tenancy strategy, which we have been leaked in
draft but will not be published until after the Mayoral Election, takes
advantage of the Localism Act, the housing sections of which mirror Principles of Social Housing Reform.

Short term (2-5 year) tenancies with no right of succession,

Up to 80% market rents (an increase typically of 200-300%)

Discharge of housing duties permanently into the private sector, almost exclusively outside the borough

Allocation of Council accommodation no longer on the basis of need.

The real housing argument is about building homes for social rent for
households on low incomes. The Tories clearly do not want to build
any. The argument about Housing Benefit costs versus displacing
thousands or families, and the economic and social costs that will
follow, is a false choice.